Well, Wednesday might not have been such a great day for Eliot Spitzer personally and professionally, but if he had taken my betting advice, he’d have had a decent return on his investment—much better to invest in the horses than in, ah, other forms of entertainment.

Of the nine horses listed on yesterday’s post, six finished in the money: one finished third; three finished second; and two won, at prices of $26.80 and $23.40. Not bad for five minutes of horse-picking last night.

Um, ah, no, I did not bet any of them.

The Blood-Horse reports that Saratoga Russell will today undergo a myectomy to address the displaced palate that he suffered in Saturday’s Gotham. Trainer Rick Violette says that the colt will return to sprinting following his recovery.

The ever-unpredictable Be Bullish returns to the races in today’s third, his first start after his remarkable, must-be-seen-to-be-believed win on February 6th.

And in a “huh??” moment: a while back I wrote a “Where are they now?” post, on horses in my DRF watch list about whom I’ve heard nothing for a long time, and about whom I have a hard time finding information. The post elicited a nice response from readers, including this one from an anonymous commenter:

I can relate closely to this post. I usually try to clean up my watches once
a year (about this time actually) mostly because I am adding new horses and I am
at my limit at both drf and equibase (still room at bris). Mares, I can track if
they have had offspring. But, geldings are harder. Especially since I’ve had
some disappear for years and then appear again.

On Sunshine Millions day in 2005 (the last time I read or heard anything about Zakocity prior to the “Where are they now?” post), in a race that I had decided that I would take off, with about a minute or less to post, I saw a horse called Tie Break. Something about his name caught my attention, I guess because I’m a tennis fan; he was at decent odds (8 or 9 – 1), and coming off a layoff. I resisted for a moment, strode to the machine, and bet him to win.

You know how the story ends: unusually for me, with a trip to the window to cash a ticket.

I put Tie Break into my watch list, and he appeared with some regularity for a while, usually at tracks south of here, with no notable success. Then he disappeared. I considered writing about him in that post in January, but decided against it. Haven’t heard a thing about him in years.

And then on Sunday, Tie Break re-appeared. He worked that morning at Calder, going three furlongs in a not-exactly world-beating :39.40…but there he is. He appears to be intact, identified by DRF as a horse, so perhaps we can surmise what he’s been up to in his absence, and apparently there is more hope for him as racehorse than as a stallion.

I felt a curious relief, mixed with disbelief, when I saw his name appear…so far, a happy ending to a disappeared horse. Welcome back, Tie Break.

Still awaiting the complete standings from Take Ten! ST Publishing has listed some of the standings, but most of our stables haven’t appeared yet. That is clearly NOT a good sign!